Automatic checking machine



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@ed SWS Patent "0 AUTOMATIC CHECKING MACHINE Samuel S. Otis, Winnetka, Ill.

Application November 13, 1950, Serial No. 195,433 f 15 Claims. (Cl. 23S-61.9)

This invention relates most immediately to a machine for automatically checking a miscellaneous collection of goods in a container and issuing a printed itemized and totalized sales check comparable to that presently issued by the standard cash register. This application is a continuation in part of copending application Ser. No. 144,- 181, filed February 14, 1950, now abandoned.

Present practice in self-service stores is for the customer to select his goods from counters, open shelves, or bins, and places the goods in a container which he brings to a cheek-out counter. Here an employee unpacks the goods, notes the cost of each, which he successively enters on a cash register and from which, when properly activated after the listing of all the items, is issued an itemized and totalized check indicative of the cost of the goods thus selected by the customer. The amount of the check is paid by the customer, the goods are placed in another container, and the customer departs forthwith. All of this is time-consuming, expensive to the store and often irritating to the customer. The larger markets attempt to alleviate this situaion by employing several persons at each checkout station. This increases expense, and, all too often, does not materially eliminate the delays and inconveniences.

The main objects of this invention, therefore, are to provide an improved form of machine for automatically issuing a visual record of the individual and composite of at least one of two characteristics common to a selected number of goods indicia of which characteristics have been pre-arrangedly associated with each of said goods. To provide an improved machine of this kind wherein the indicia-activate means for effecting the issuance of Such a recordation is either through the medium of some form of space-transmitted waves or by mechanical means; to provide an improved machine of this kind having means for registering the substantial accord or material discrepancy between the composite actual and composite indicated second characteristic common to said goods and thereby permit the issuance of the aforesaid visual record or require the issuance of a substitute therefor; to provide in one type of a machine of this kind a coordinated arrangement of X-ray and photo-electric cell mechanisms capable of activation by the indicia associated with the selected goods for effecting the visual recording process; to provide in another type of machine of this kind improved mechanical means capable of direct activation by the indicia associated with said goods for effecting thev issuance of such a recordation; to provide an improved machine of this kind especially adapted for issuing a visual record of the individual and composite price characteristics for the various goods selected by a shopper from shelves, trays, and bins of a store or market; to provide an improved form and arrangement of parts of a machine of this kind whereby the issuance of the aforesaid visual record is dependent upon the substantial agreement beof goods with respect to the wave-transmitting mechanismso as to insure a recordation of all the indicia on the goods in a container and the issuance of a visual pricerecord representative of the full composite price characteristics of all of the goods in the container; to providel a machine of the space-transmitted wave type with means for mechanically recording each indicia-influenced action container. and eliminating duplicate records so that the visual-price record is repre-y for each altered position of the sentative of no more than but the full composite of all the goods in the container; and to provide an improved machine of this kind which permits the shopper to place` the container of goods on the machine and initiate its operation independent of the services of the store attendant.

Inu the accompanying drawings, two embodiments of this lnvenuon are illustrated. One of these is hereinafter called the mechanical for making printed recordations from apertured or perforate cards, for the purpose of activating the accumulat-` lng and record-issuing mechanisms. The other is hereinafter designated as the trans-space recording type structure .as is essential to understanding its character and functloning.

Fig. 1 is a schematic arrangement of the several prin-l cipal units, mechanical and/or electrical, as they are associated in one or the other bodiments of this invention;

Fig. 2 is a perspective view of a form able for use with mechanical embodying this invention, a shown positioned on the container platform.

Fig. 3 is a view indicating suitable for use in this mechanical recording type machine;

Flg. 4 is a perspective view of a carton of breakfast cereal, showing one way in which an index tag may be attached thereto;

i Fig. 5 is a perspective view of a form of housing belteved to be suitable for the trans-space recording type of machine embodying this invention, a container of goods being positioned on the platform therein preparatory to having the same automatically checked for issuance of a sales check;

Fig. 6 is a diagrammatic perspective of the shadowproducing and activating mechanism for the trans-space recording machine and which controls the production of the pcrforate cards which effect the issuance of the printed sales check or its alternate;

of housing suitrecording type of machine recording type machine, since itv employs a mechanism, comparable to that presently used are largely diagrammaticof the herein-disclosed em container of goods being a form of index card or tag 

